Ivy Coach College Admissions Blog

Only 2% of college admissions counselors think graduating with no debt is a reasonable debt level? Does this even make sense? We think not (photo credit: Jacob Rus).

Tonight is the presidential debate. Romney vs. Obama. The big showdown. One issue that could potentially come up is rising student debt as these students graduate from four-year universities and enter the working world (or mommy and daddy’s basement in many cases). While we never thought we’d discuss a “Gawker” article with you, there is an article out today about how college admissions directors are “very comfortable with your huge student debt.” An interesting title for an article for sure!

According to the always reputable “Gawker” (cough), “A new Inside Higher Ed survey of college admissions counselors of all sorts asked: What do you consider a ‘reasonable debt level’ for a student to have, for four years in school? Forty two percent said $20k-$30k, and 17% said $30K-$40K, meaning that a vast majority of college admissions directors are perfectly comfortable with you coming out of their school with between $20k and $40K worth of debt. Whether you believe that is problematic or not probably correlates with both your income and your faith in our economy to provide stable, well-paying jobs to new college graduates. As a statement of The New Normal, yes, it is problematic.”

The results of this survey certainly paint a coldhearted picture of college admissions counselors. While it doesn’t say it in the “Gawker” article, 2% of college admissions counselors stated that they considered “no debt” a reasonable debt level for four years. Does that even make sense? Why would no debt be unreasonable? And 1% of college admissions counselors stated that less than $5,000 is a reasonable debt load. 8% thought between $5,000 to $10,000 was reasonable. You get the idea. Perhaps the survey isn’t composed very well. We highly doubt only 1% of college admissions counselors think no debt for college grads is reasonable. It hardly makes any sense whatsoever. Survey design matters and we think this data — while it grabs headlines — is flawed.